


Muddle Through Somehow

by bri_ness



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Canon Compliant, Drabble Collection, Holidays, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:09:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27919516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bri_ness/pseuds/bri_ness
Summary: A collection of drabbles for the RWRB Winterfest 2020.
Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor
Comments: 45
Kudos: 60
Collections: RWRB Winterfest 2020





	1. Snowman

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I have hardly written anything all year, but I came across this fest on tumblr literally today and thought it would be a good way to ease back into writing. I have no idea how many prompts I'll do, but I do know that posting this on AO3 will motivate me to do more than I would've otherwise. I think they'll mostly be canon compliant, but who knows, I love to change my mind! 
> 
> Title is from the best forgotten Christmas lyric: "until then we'll have to muddle through somehow" from Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.
> 
> This prompt is "snowman" and it's set between Christmas and New Year's in 2019. Enjoy!

Alex is staring at the worst crime the British monarchy has ever committed. Genocide notwithstanding.

He calls Henry before he quite realizes what he’s doing because _someone_ has to answer for this, and well, he doesn’t have a direct line to the queen. Besides, he likes to challenge Henry, likes to be surprised and kind of thrilled by the wit in his responses. Most people get exhausted by Alex, as June so kindly put it once, and while Henry has mastered the longsuffering sigh, he keeps up with him, beat for beat—

“Alex,” Henry answers, voice gentle in a way that throws Alex off. “Is everything alright?”

Alex blushes, remembering their last conversation on Christmas where he oh-so-casually dumped all his childhood baggage on Henry then said, “Well, goodnight!” He hoped Henry would move past it, but it’s—it’s kind that he hasn’t. June aside, as long as he’s still producing and performing as Alex Claremont-Diaz, the golden boy of all golden boys, number fucking one in the approval ratings, people assume he’s alright because it fits that narrative.

“Alex?”

Alex snaps out of it. Henry’s question may be kind, but Alex does not survive by dwelling on his thoughts.

“No, everything is absolutely not alright,” Alex answers. “You have an exorbitant amount of wealth. ‘Blood money,’ I believe you called it. And yet, you make a snowman that looks like the first stock image in a Google search for ‘basic ass snowman.’”

“You certainly know that I didn’t search for ‘basic ass snowman’—”

“Well, this will be the first result now!” Alex continues to study the photo of Henry, Philip, and Bea in front of three lumps of snow with button eyes and a smile, branches for arms, and a black scarf draped around its neck. Not even a carrot nose in sight! “All that money and you couldn’t spring for an ice sculpture?”

“It was supposed to remind people that we’re just a normal family.”

Alex snorts.

“And I thought you were against the gross misuse of government funds?” Henry continues. “I seem to recall the Great Turkey Incident of 2019—”

“Irrelevant. Where’s the creativity, Henry? Where’s the drama?”

“I would like to see you do better.”

And that is how Alex ends up outside, June in tow, building a fucking snowman. She has some questions, mainly: “Why are we building a snowman in the likeness of the Prince of England?”

“To prove a point.”

“That point being?”

“You journalists are too inquisitive.”

June lets it go, but not without a look Alex does not have time to decipher because he is _proving a point_.

Truthfully, their snowman is not much different than Henry’s. It’s hard to deviate from the three lumps of snows formula, and the button eyes and smile are a classic. (He is, however, dismayed to learn there are no carrots at home. Why even move into the White House if every form of vegetation isn’t available at his fingertips?).

But he switches the black scarf for a grey tie, and in addition to the branches he uses for the arms, he sticks a branch up the snowman’s ass. He quickly snaps a picture, then removes the branch before Zahra discovers it and yells at him.

Alex texts the picture to Henry and says: _This is you._

Henry’s reply is quick: _I got that. Truly astounding creativity. You were right to shame me and I shall live in embarrassment for the rest of my days._

_A noble response! You are a true prince!_

Looking up from his phone, Alex realizes June has added buttons to the smile, making it so big and wide that it looks slightly deranged.

“That is definitely not Henry,” Alex says. “I don’t think he’s allowed to show that much emotion. Like, contractually.”

“It’s you, dumbass,” she says, removing the grey tie. “It’s nice, right?”

It’s weird how it makes Alex aware of his own smile. He smiles often, and genuinely, but this one feels different, like someone tacked extra buttons to the end of his own lips. Like he’s just a bit happier than he knew he could be.

He’s tempted to text Henry again to say: _hey, I’m alright. Thanks for asking._ But that would bring him back to that place, back to those thoughts he can’t dwell on, and he prefers it here.

Smiling a little wider and pretending he doesn’t know why.


	2. Baking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the comments on the last prompt! I am having a lot of fun with these. I'm really looking forward to reading the other fics in this fest once I have some time.
> 
> This prompt is baking and it's set in the present day. The pandemic is a thing, and the assumption is that while it's been handled much better than it has been in reality, it is still a thing.

“Despite being two people with impressive resumes, our bakers are really struggling in these last few minutes. In fact, one might be concerned that these are members of some of the most powerful families in the world—”

“I must say, Pez,” Henry says, intensely focused on coating his battenberg cake with the marzipan layer. Alex knows exactly how talented Henry’s fingers are, but it turns out the skills aren’t transferrable as the marzipan cracks under their weight. “Your hosting style is not in the spirit of the Great British Bake-Off.”

Pez’s grin shoots straight through the Zoom screen, which is exactly why they chose him to host. The message from the White House regarding the holidays is: _stay the fuck home to avoid spreading a deadly virus, in case you somehow weren’t already aware that’s the right thing to do._ (At least, that was Alex’s recommendation. June slightly reworked it, but the point remained).

Since that’s a shitty message to give, Alex brainstormed ways for people to feel connected in isolation. And AOC got a Twitch account, so he got a Twitch account. (His not-so-secret dream is to be part of her Among Us lobby. Nora has accused him of being too thirsty on Twitter). He’s currently doing a stream to raise money for COVID relief, but also to promote the simple idea of baking for your neighbours. What better way than with him and Henry attempting a Bake Off-style technical challenge?

“Alex, for his part, does not seem to be helping Henry at all,” Pez narrates. Henry hums in agreement.

“I’m reading the comments!” Alex replies. “And I’m morally against making desserts with jam in them! Why is your culture obsessed with that?”

The comments fly in, as they’ve been doing all night.

_alex with the jam hot takes!!!_

_I know it’s been a full hour but I can’t get over Henry’s apron_

_[deleted message]_

_Henry I love you but what are you doing to this poor cake_

_[deleted message]_

_so many fanfics will be written tonight, praise_

Alex silently thanks Nora and the team of friends she recruited to moderate his stream for deleting most of the homophobic messages before he sees them. Though, it’s weird—it’s almost worse to imagine what they might say. He can dismiss slurs and bad theology that condemns him to Hell, but the quiet hate, the secretive kind that only shows up when decisions are made, that’s harder to process.

He glances at Henry, takes a moment to comprehend that he is baking with his boyfriend in a Brooklyn brownstone, and that it’s every bit as romantic and cozy as the alliteration suggests—even with thousands of people watching them. He, truly, wishes he could bring everyone into their space right now, but if this is all he can do, he is sure as hell going to do it. Fuck the haters, as Henry said to him when they planned this stream, sending Alex into full hysterics that he smiles again at the memory of.

Henry, somewhat successfully, coats the cake, then cuts off what he refers to as the “funky bits” on the end. The inside is…questionable. The checked pattern is more like deformed rectangles, the jam layer is uneven, and Henry makes a face when he tastes it.

“It’s quite,” Henry says, then takes too long of a pause. “Terrible. Yes, quite terrible.”

“I blame the jam,” Alex says.

“Your vendetta against jam is strange and misguided,” Pez says, then helps them close out the stream. They stay on the call with him for another hour, during which Alex texts Nora to ask if AOC commented on his stream. Nora responds with a GIF of Megan Mullally chugging water, which isn’t a no.

After the call and before their kitchen is clean, Alex says, “So, I saw a comment that there is going to be a lot of fanfiction written tonight.”

Henry raises his eyebrows. “Really.”

“And I think we should try to outdo them.”

Henry swallows hard, and Alex smiles at the moment that’s just for them.


	3. Snowflake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's prompt is snowflake, enjoy!

If a room belongs to Alex, it’s known.

By the photos of him and June with gaps in their teeth and big smiles, by news clippings that declare Texas went blue, by stained coffee mugs that serve as artistic pieces. And currently, by the Charlie Brown Christmas tree Alex and June were in charge of decorating as kids, by the pointedly-not-Christmas-or-holiday-specific cards from Nora that line the windowsill, by the bobblehead snowmen his dad loved so much he declared them heirlooms.

Sometimes, somewhat sadly, Alex thought you’d hardly know that Henry lives with him at all.

Which is why it’s a surprise to come home and find their living room decorated with paper snowflakes, the kind Alex remembers from elementary school art class. They’re tied to string and stuck to the ceiling with scotch tape, and it’s so charmingly simple and sweet that Alex damn near melts to find Henry in the middle of it all.

Alex watches him for a second, biting his lip and intently focused on a video on his phone. Stepping closer, Alex realizes the video is literally called _How to Make Paper Snowflakes_ , and Alex can’t stop himself from saying, “Baby.”

Henry startles, his scissors slicing through the paper with the sound of making a mistake. “Oh, Alex. Hello.”

“I’m sorry, ‘Oh Alex, hello?’ Do I not deserve a ‘Good evening, great love of my life! I’ve waited anxiously all day for you, during which I descended into a pit of paper snowflake madness—'"

“Are you finished?”

“I’m clearly not, but.” Alex pulls a chair up to where Henry’s set up shop on the coffee table. “I love this, obviously, but wanna share the inspiration?”

Alex watches Henry consider this because even still, even now, Henry doesn’t tell him everything, and that’s ok. As long as he knows that he can.

This time though, Henry turns to him, eyes and everything else fully open. “Last night,” Henry begins. “When you were putting up those dreadful bobblehead snowmen—”

“They’re heirlooms, thank you.”

“Well, right. Exactly. You started telling stories about your dad, and I remembered mine.”

Alex would soften if he weren’t already the consistency of a marshmallow. “Yeah?”

“I couldn’t decorate my room much, but at Christmas, we’d make snowflakes together. Probably hundreds of them, all hung around my room just like this. Tacky and totally inappropriate for royalty.” Henry grins. “And my dad would say something cliché about how I can be like the snowflakes, how I don’t need to be and shouldn’t be like anyone else. A bit uninspired but, you know. It helped.”

It’s not a new feeling, but Alex desperately wants to punch every alt-right douchebag who uses _snowflake_ as an insult in the face. He channels that energy elsewhere, taking Henry’s hand in his.

“I just wish,” Henry says, and Alex hears the snag in his throat. Not a worrying one, not a sign he’s about to cry, but a snag all the same. “That he could know you. And you could know him.”

Alex could offer a cliché of his own about how Henry’s dad is always with him, watching over them, and probably knows more about Alex than he’d care to—and who the fuck knows, maybe that’s true—but he decides the truth is more helpful. “Me too.”

Alex takes a piece of paper, folds it, and gestures for Henry to pass him the scissors. He surveys the room as he works, all the beautiful evidence of the sweetest parts of Henry.

He’s glad this home belongs to both of them.


	4. Cabin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This prompt is cabin, but to be honest, it is totally inspired by Taylor Swift talking about The Lakes during the Long Pond Sessions. Happy Evermore day. Enjoy!

The goal was always escape.

It had to be. There was no possibility for Henry’s life that included happiness, not in serving his country, not in finding a wife, not in inheriting the throne should Philip die in a freak accident. And that was fine, he supposed, because there were other things: marathon after marathon of Great British Bake-Off, a vision of a world defined by Jaffa cakes and kindness. Whispers of hook-ups that were other people’s fantasies. Writing stories with found families and love letters that would make Alexander Hamilton blush.

Alex. At first, in the beginning, before he insisted on more, before he showed Henry a life he didn’t want to escape from, a reality that matched his most romantic and ludicrous dreams. The stubborn asshole.

Henry hears him through the door, muttering to himself. They’ve rented a cabin for the weekend, for Henry to write and for Alex to read—among other things. Though they live together, it still feels like sleepaway camp with them whispering secrets to each other late in the night. 

Alex swings the bedroom door open, loud and a presence. “I’m not distracting you,” he declares, tip-toeing past Henry’s spot in the living room to the kitchen. “I need coffee, and the coffee is in the kitchen, and you are in the way, but I am _not distracting you._ Though maybe I should, because I can see your laptop screen, and I can see that you’ve only written ‘Chapter One.’ Which is brilliant, baby, but I will gently suggest you could’ve made more progress in an hour--”

Alex yammers on. He’s not wrong. Despite being in a cabin that’s surrounded by snow, straight out of a fairytale and Henry’s imagination, he’s a bit uninspired. He used to write easily, turning everything he wanted to escape to into a tangible story to believe in.

But now, he has that tangible thing to believe in, and he’s standing in the kitchen in Henry’s shirt, humming to himself while he makes coffee. Perhaps, Henry thinks, he needs a new goal. Not to escape, but to tell the truth of what he wants the world to believe in. To write about Alex, but for him as well.

As Alex heads back to the bedroom, still insisting he’s not a distraction, Henry reaches over the couch and grabs him by the shirt. Pulling him in close, Alex’s coffee spills onto the floor, but he still smiles at Henry like this is what he came out here for. “Need a distraction, sweetheart?”

Henry shakes his head. “Inspiration.”


	5. Cold Hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't think I'd write anything today, but then this happened. Prompt is "cold hands," enjoy!

It’s always the first clue.

Heat warns of an incoming crush. It happened first when he was twelve, when he took Callie’s hand in gym class because square dancing was inexplicably part of the curriculum. It was the moment he realized attraction could be more than thinking a girl was pretty, that he could feel it in some unknown core of him, that it could sear him. (His mom, like an all-knowing wizard, sat him down a week later for a PowerPoint titled _Changing Body, Changing Feelings, and You_ ).

Liam was all heat, everything from his fingertips to the place Alex kissed in the crook of his neck. Alex, fancying himself an intellectual, decided that he’d romanticized the moment with Callie. Heat’s just a physical reaction, the result of one body touching another.

Alex could believe that, because there was more with Nora. Warmth, a comfort he settled in when their heat nearly killed them. And he loved her the most, if ultimately as a friend.

Henry’s the first time it’s been cold.

Not because he’s some stoic, unknowable man like Alex once believed. Not because their relationship lacks warmth, and definitely not because it lacks heat—there’s some leaked emails that prove that.

Because it’s the first time in a relationship Alex has embraced every piece of the other person instead of running from their anger and fighting their sadness. He just stands with Henry through all of it.

Like now, when Henry’s stepped outside in the bitter mid-December air without a coat or gloves for a moment, just because he needs a moment. Alex followed, a step behind in body but not in spirit. It’s a bad day, and Henry doesn’t really know why, but it is.

Alex watches Henry rub his hands together, fingers turning pink. “You don’t have to do that alone, you know,” Alex says.

Henry nods, sharp, and flexes his fingers. Alex steps forward to take his hand, but it’s kind of useless. He’s freezing too.

“Sorry,” Alex says through chattering teeth. “This probably isn’t warming you up.”

“No,” Henry says, then pauses. “Still helps, though.”

They stand together, cold, but hand in hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr: [brionbroadway](http://brionbroadway.tumblr.com)


End file.
